As Nigeria continues to struggle to translate its huge oil resource wealth into the living standards of its people, experts have advocated for more investment in gas utilization, the agricultural sector and the Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs).
The experts who spoke at the 2nd Warri Economic Summit held at the Brown Hill Event Centre, Warri, Delta State, lamented that Nigeria, despite being the highest producer of oil in Africa, has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty.
In his keynote address, former Executive Director of Operations, Nigeria Gas Company, Gabriel Aggrey emphasized the need for government and private individuals to invest in the vast opportunities present in the gas utilization market.
Aggrey who spoke on the topic “Gas Utilization for Light/Medium Scale Industries; 3Qiuck wins,” lamented that people were concentrating too much on building petrol stations instead of gas stations.
He said with investment in gas Utilization, Nigeria would lift millions out of poverty line, calling on investors to take advantage of the huge opportunities in the gas sector and create wealth for the people.
“The chunk of natural gas that we produce in this country comes from Warri, Delta State. Delta is the hub of natural gas in the Niger Delta region and I am surprised that nobody in this area is picking interest in harnessing these natural resources that we have,” Aggrey said.
Amos Irueden, former Accountant, Corporation for Agricultural Finance and Development and member of Ibru Organization, who spoke on “Palm Oil Value Chain and Palm Oil Plantation Management Techniques; what we did wrong in the past and how to get it right this time,” harped on the importance of agriculture.
Read also: AfDB disbursed $5.93m to boost agriculture in Africa
Irueden said agriculture is the mainstay of economy stressing that the Federal and state governments must do all they can to ensure that young people were engaged in one form of agriculture or the other.
“In 1950 and 1960 Nigeria was a leader in the oil Palm market. However, during the past few years, Nigeria has become an importer of Palm oil and other related products, while in the 1960s Nigeria accounts for about 46 percent of world oil production. But today it only accounts for less than five percent in global output,” Irueden said.
Bamidele Adeyole, CEO Dorbude Consulting, who spoke on “Access to Markets, Access to Finance: Scaling Up for SMEs,” said if the government wants to tackle the issue of poverty, access to market and finance must be made easy for people.
“SMEs are the engine room for the development of any economy and to achieve these we need ideas, contact, and capital to forge ahead.
“There are so many factors why small business owners are not attractive to financiers and one of them is that many of us are not ready for business. Most of us have not even registered our businesses. We have 300 million dollars to access through the Central Bank of Nigeria just for Agriculture,” Adeyole said.
Earlier, the Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa who was represented by the Chief of Staff, David Edevwie, commended the Warri South Council Chairman, Michael Tidi for organizing the summit.
He said the state government was delighted to hear that the proposed 1000 hectares of oil palm plantation in the Warri South local government council were ready.
“I am indeed very pleased to hear of the technology hub project which will provide ready markets and access to those with competent technology skills as well as training for others who want to learn is on the way. With vast projects like these, the future of our people is indeed very bright,” Okowa said.
On his part, the Warri South Council Chairman, Michael Tidi in his welcome of address, said the solutions to all the problems of Warri was job creation.
“Youth unruliness will be better dealt with when we can point top new employment opportunities; revenue for the council will improve with more current are working and therefore within the rateable population. More revenue for the council means more service provided for the people of Warri,” said.
